The very act of teaching music made Chetham’s music school ripe for fear and exploitation, say two famous alumni

Can the reputation of one of Britain’s finest specialist music schools be salvaged? And if so, how? Chetham’s has nurtured hundreds of top classical musicians. Its pupils regularly dominate the BBC Young Musician of the Year awards, and “Chets” alumni are in the front ranks of every professional orchestra and opera company in the country.

But following the conviction of its former head of music, Michael Brewer, for the sexual abuse of pupils, and the suicide of one of his victims, Frances Andrade, the school has been engulfed in a flood of allegations about other teachers in the 1980s and